


Thaw

by Serindrana



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 22:17:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serindrana/pseuds/Serindrana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a deep chill settling in Bethany's chest. The life of a Warden is not happy, or easy, or warm. But old acquaintances can sometimes bring a little sunshine with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thaw

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spicyshimmy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/gifts).



Camp is always cold. It doesn't matter what country they're in or what season. There's always a deep shiver seated in Bethany's chest, and it winds it's way from belly to spine to throat and fingers. And where sleep was once a relief from the chill, bundled in blankets and a mother's love, it now holds only the promise of nightmares. Instead she walks the perimeter of camp most nights, even though they want the archers and the shieldmen to keep the line and not the mages.

So she's awake when the small contingent rides in, sending magic flares up that crash blue and silver in the clouded sky. She joins the watch for the night in crowding at the trail entrance. 

They're not supposed to get a resupply visit for another week, just in time for a full excursion beneath the surface. They've been mapping the surface in the lead up, dropping into nearby towns to collect rumors. They're trying to chart the last five years of activity without having charted it when it was happening. 

It's not working. 

She can hear steps in the forest. It's not enough for a resupply train. It's four at most. And when they break the trees, it's only three. Two men she recognizes- and one woman she recognizes but shouldn't be here. 

It's been three years, but she recognizes those eyes, that nose, that blue band around her upper arm.

She steps forward. 

"Athenril?"

The elf doesn't smile, not exactly, but she does smirk and bow her head. "So this is what happened to you, kid?"

"I- yeah." She swallows and tries to smile. "Yeah."

 

___

 

The next night she's not on watch, and neither is Athenril. The Wardens don't need little mages getting in the way and they don't need new-blood elves poking their noses into business they haven't earned the right to yet. So the two women sit by the fire, not quite side by side.

"What happened?" Bethany finally asks. She's been wondering since the night before, but hasn't worked up the nerve, let alone found the moment. It's a private sort of question, she knows, and she doesn't expect an answer. It had taken her half a year to tell anybody, and even now she doesn't offer it easily. 

But Athenril does. She leans back and says, "A job gone bad."

Bethany blinks, then ducks her head. "I know how that is," she offers. 

"They lost you on Bartrand's trip, didn't they?"

Nobody here, or anywhere under the oversight of Weisshaupt, knows about the job. Stroud and his men know that she was in the Deep Roads with her brother, but that's it. To hear it is surreal, and it takes her longer than it should just to nod. 

"Your brother's doing well," Athenril says after another stretch of quiet. It's not like her, to fill the silence, but Bethany takes it. 

"I know. I get letters from him sometimes." She picks up a small stone, turning it in her fingers. "Everything in his life seems to be charmed. And the things that aren't get lost quickly."

Athenril snorts. "You're hardly lost."

Bethany swallows and smiles tightly, fingers tightening around her meaningless prize. "You'll understand eventually," she says. "This isn't a blessing."

"No, but it's something."

Bethany looks up to see Athenril wholly focused on her. Heat flares to her cheeks, breaking the cold for just a moment, and then she turns away. She scowls at the fire.

"Not really," she mutters, and throws the stone into the fire. It catches one of the charred logs and the wood crumbles in a fountain of sparks. 

The fire burns low, and Bethany rises to take her walk.

 

___

 

It's the feel that lingers longest. The smell is a close second. It's easy enough to wash the inky splotches of darkspawn blood away, but harder to get rid of the feel of it, the sick slickness that seems to cling to her skin and hair and clothing. 

She hates this. She hates this more with every battle, with every felled beast. She supposes it's not supposed to be this way, but there's nothing else in it for her. 

It's just the eternal slog, the eternal cycle, the eternal cold. 

Down below the surface, it grows colder before it grows warmer, and she thinks it might be that inbetween space her body is stuck in, shivering rock chill instead of the heat of the sun or of the earth's blood. It's also the taint, and the loneliness, and the weeks or months without a glimpse of sunshine. It's impossibly to shake, just like the thin sheen of death that seems to cling to her always. 

Athenril keeps her distance now. Bethany supposes, too, that it's for the best. No matter how much she longs to sit almost side by side with the smuggler, to reclaim a part of her lost life (such as it was) in Kirkwall, she allows the distance.

Athenril takes to it all better than Bethany did. The other Wardens grow fond of her quickly. It's her competence, her confidence, her sly and quiet type of humor. It's everything that makes Bethany watch her from across camp, and everything she never really thought about during her year of service. 

Athenril is beautiful, and Bethany feels only another drop in temperature when she looks at her, because nobody wants a cold, tainted thing.

And so she keeps her distance and scrubs her skin until it's pink and raw, and waits for when they surface once more, the quiet break between nightmares. 

 

___

 

She makes her way around the outside of camp, slow steps as she tries to still her mind. It's something that Malcolm once taught her, when she was young and her temper would flare with real fire. Now her temper is buried, and there's no risk of errant embers, but she walks to steady her mind. 

She's had another dream, but this time it was no nightmare. This time it was the soothing release of being allowed to die from the taint instead of being dragged into the life she has now. 

She mourns the dream's end, and so she walks. 

There's snow drifting down from the sepia clouded sky, and her boots crunch in the accumulating powder. When she was younger, she used to send heat down through her feet to melt the snow underneath her. Now the cold comes up instead. It's almost comforting to be able to feel it. 

It means that somewhere there's still some warmth left in her. 

There's a single footstep behind her, and she looks back only slowly. It's Athenril. Bethany's smile is at first immediate and shameful, then tight and controlled.

"I thought you might need this," Athenril says, and she comes close enough that Bethany imagines she can hear the elf breathing. There's a rustle of fabric and then Athenril drapes a heavy wool blanket around her shoulders. 

Bethany curls her fingers around the edges and pulls it tight before she can think the better of it. 

"You walk like this every night," Athenril says. It's not a question. Bethany still nods. "The nightmares?"

"Sometimes," Bethany says, and at a touch to her shoulder, she turns to face Athenril. "Most of the time. Not tonight, though."

"Too cold to sleep, then?"

Bethany blinks, then laughs, a thin and uneven thing. "You could say that."

Athenril loops an arm around Bethany's shoulders. Bethany tries to pull away for just a heartbeat, then leans into the touch.  Athenril pulls her around, and together they make their way back to the camp proper, boots crunching in the snow. 

"The fire went out," Athenril says when they reach the dark circle of tents. "It's no wonder."

"Oh." Bethany looks at the cold fire pit. Athenril leaves her side to pile more wood into it. The wood is damp from the snow, but Bethany wiggles her fingers as Athenril steps back, and the branches hiss and crackle and finally flare to light. 

She smiles, just a little. Athenril smiles back. 

"Feel better?" Athenril asks as Bethany draws close to her and the fire.

"A little." She digs her toe into the ground and brings the blanket more tightly around her. "Still cold, though."

Athenril chuckles. "These tents could fit two. And you would appear to already have my blanket."

"Do I?" Bethany asks as her heart begins to beat double time and she feels no need to take a walk to settle it. 

"You do," Athenril says with an outstretched hand. "So let's get you warmed up."

Bethany reaches out and takes her hand. It's warm with no trace of darkspawn slime, and for just a moment the taint seems to subside. She's back in Kirkwall with her mother and brother, scraping to get by. She's in Lothering with the snow coming down and making her laugh in delight at the glittering landscape. 

She's hand in hand with Athenril, and it's the easiest thing in the world to follow her into the dark of her tent.


End file.
